A gentle, masterful exploration of growing up and coming to terms with the past.
A novel about growing pains, redemption and the steady presence of the natural world.
Rector’s debut focuses on one summer in the life of 15-year-old Eva Robinson, a tomboyish girl whose greatest ambition is to live in the cabin of her close older friend, Cyril Bankstrom, in the Adirondacks. She visits the camp where Cyril lives every summer with her parents, and she’s grown up there in beautiful surroundings. This summer, however, her world is changing: Her father isn’t there, as he’s been imprisoned for a drunken driving incident that killed an innocent person, and her mother is anxious and unsure of how to deal with Eva now that she’s an adolescent girl. Eva spends time with Cyril, as she always has, but another major addition to her life is Jared, a boy her age whose family lives in the area. He’s as enchanted with the area’s old guide boats as Eva is with the mountains, and they spend a tender, tentative nine days together before they part ways. Over the course of the summer, Eva confronts issues that help to shape her into the woman she will become, and her cold disposition toward her father and her unwillingness to empathize with her mother both soften over the course of the book. Cyril is a spiritual man who talks often of God and forgiveness, and he influences Eva during this critical summer in ways that resonate throughout the work. Rector does an admirable job of narrating the inner lives of his characters, including those of a teenage girl, a woman supporting her imprisoned husband, and a man nearing the end of a life spent in the wilderness. He treats them all with care, never allowing any of them—even Datus, the town drunk—to descend to the level of stereotype. Although the novel has tragic elements and fairly mature themes, it’s still suitable for young teenagers to read. Indeed, the guidance Cyril gives Eva comes through so strongly that it may help young people struggling with finding their own places in the adult world.
A gentle, masterful exploration of growing up and coming to terms with the past.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1938467684
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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